Editing Quotation (section)

=====Laal=====

In [[Laal language|Laal]], the quotative evidential ''mɨ́'' is used for non-self quotation<ref name="laal"/> (i.e. quotation in which the speaker quotes someone else, not themself); it is used with a quotative verb ''ɓɨ́lá''. The use of ''mɨ́'' results in an indirect quotation translation. The quotative verb ''bɨ́lá'' occurs before the quotation, while the quotative evidential ''mɨ́'' occurs within the quoted speech ''já mɨ́ nyàg tāā wó'':

{{interlinear |lang=gdm |indent=2 |abbreviations=QEV:quotative evidential
|c1= <ref name="laal"/>
| à<sub>i</sub> '''ɓɨ́lá''' mɨ́ já<sub>*i/j</sub> '''mɨ́''' nyàg tāā wó 
| He '''say''' (say)that I '''QEV''' eat fish NEG
| "He<sub>i</sub> said that I<sub>*i/j</sub> don't/didn't eat fish."
}}

As the above sentence involves a non-self quotation, ''à'' (he) and ''já'' (I) have different indices to show that they refer to different [[referent]]s; only this interpretation is [[well-formedness|well-formed]]. The interpretation in which they share identical indices is ill-formed (i.e. ungrammatical), as indicated by the asterisk.

In addition to quotative markers, speakers also use [[prosody (linguistics)|prosodic]] shifts, pauses, pronominal choices, and [[grammatical tense|tense]] to detect the occurrence and boundaries of quotations in spoken utterances.<ref name="tracy"/>